Cold War Era
11 verified stories from the Cold War Era, each with its Short and sources.
A Drug Lord Smuggled 4 Hippos Into Colombia. Now There Are Hundreds.
In the 1980s, Pablo Escobar illegally imported 4 hippos to his private zoo. After his death they were left behind - and they never stopped breeding. Colombia now has the largest wild hippo population outside Africa.
A Country With No Army Took On the Royal Navy. And Won.
Between 1958 and 1976, Iceland fought three Cod Wars with Britain over its fishing waters. Iceland's coast guard cut British trawl nets, frigates and patrol boats rammed each other 55 times in the final round, and Iceland threatened to shut a NATO base. It worked.
An Earthquake Trapped a Lake Above a City. They Drained It With Shovels. ⛏️
In May 1960 the strongest earthquake ever recorded hit southern Chile. Landslides blocked the outflow of Riñihue Lake, and the water began rising behind the debris dam, with about 100,000 people living downstream along the San Pedro River toward Valdivia. Bulldozers bogged down in the mud, so soldiers and hundreds of workers dug with shovels, lowering the dam until the lake drained gradually. Chileans call it the Riñihuazo.
A Nuclear Launch Needed All 3 Officers to Agree. He Said No.
a Soviet submarine lost contact with Moscow during the Cuban Missile Crisis and its captain wanted to fire a nuclear torpedo at the American fleet. Launching it required all three senior officers to agree. This is the true story of Vasili Arkhipov, the man who said no.
What Happens When a Submarine's Window Cracks Seven Miles Down?
On 23 January 1960, two men descended into the Mariana Trench aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste. At thirty-five thousand eight hundred feet down, they reached the seabed of Challenger Deep. During the descent, a sharp bang shook the cabin as an outer Plexiglas viewing window cracked under pressure, yet the steel sphere held.
The Worst Industrial Disaster in History Happened While a City Slept. ☠️
a toxic gas leak at a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India killed thousands of people overnight and injured hundreds of thousands more. Decades later, it remains the worst industrial disaster in history.
Four Students Broke Into Westminster Abbey to Steal a Stone
At Christmas 1950, four Glasgow University students - Ian Hamilton, Gavin Vernon, Kay Matheson and Alan Stuart - took the Stone of Destiny from under the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey. It broke in two on the floor. A policeman chatted to two of them in their car without spotting the piece hidden inside. The stone turned up at Arbroath Abbey in April 1951, and none of them was ever prosecuted.
A Single Switch Stopped a Nuclear Blast on US Soil ☢️
a B-52 bomber broke apart over North Carolina and dropped two multi-megaton hydrogen bombs. Three of four arming mechanisms triggered on descent—only a single toggle switch stopped a nuclear blast.
A Ship That Couldn't Sink Was Found With No One Aboard.
the trading ship Joyita left Samoa for a routine 41-hour voyage and never arrived. Five weeks later, it was found adrift 600 miles off course - half-sunk but still floating, with bloodstained bandages on deck and every life raft gone. All 25 people aboard were never found.
He Had Never Run a Marathon. He Entered One at the Olympics.
At the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Emil Zatopek of Czechoslovakia won the 5,000 and 10,000 metres - and on the day of one of those wins his wife Dana took gold in the javelin. Then he ran the first marathon of his life. Halfway through he asked the world record holder, Jim Peters, if the pace was too fast; Peters, joking, said it wasn't fast enough. Zatopek sped up and won in an Olympic record.
How Do You Build a Whole New Capital City in 41 Months? 🏗️
Brazil's capital had been Rio de Janeiro. President Juscelino Kubitschek's motto was "fifty years in five", and a brand-new capital was the cornerstone of his plan. Lúcio Costa won the contest for the master plan, Oscar Niemeyer designed most of the public buildings, and construction that began in February 1957 was finished 41 months later. Brasília became the capital in 1960.